Telecommunication service providers fight for customers on many different fronts including the provision of business service and the provision of residential service. When a service provider lands a customer, the network of that service provider generally transmits the communications or provides for the transmission of communications from that customer's business or residence to the called party's terminating device. Of course, a customer may select a particular service provider for a particular service such as long distance service, and a different service provider for a different service such as local service. In the case of business or residential service, the assignment of a communication received from a particular business or residence to a network of a service provider is carried out based on the subscription information provided by the customer. For example, if a customer has subscribed to Acme Communications for local residential service, then a local call made from the customer's residence is assigned to Acme's network for transmission to the called party.
Problems relating to the assignment of a communication arise in certain circumstances. A communication assignment problem may arise when a customer desires to make a call from a telephone that is not associated with the customer's subscription with a service provider. For example, a customer may desire to make a call from a pay telephone or from a telephone in a friend's home. Problems typically do not arise in the transmission of that communication. Rather, problems arise when the customer wants to make a call from a "non-subscription" telephone, and the customer desires to reap the benefits of the customer's subscription with a particular service provider. To reap the benefits, the customer must be able to have the call assigned to the network of the customer's service provider. And even if the customer is not keenly interested in reaping the benefits of the customer's subscription with a particular service provider, the service provider is interested in transmitting the customer's communications on its network or otherwise providing for the transmission of the communications. By transmitting communications or by providing for their transmission, the service provider garners revenue. Thus, service providers generally are very interested in having communications assigned to them for transmission or for providing for their transmission.
The service of pay telephones is one area where service providers may increase their business over and above the enlistment of new subscribers to business service or residential service. Of course, the owner of a pay telephone may subscribe to a particular service provider for the transmission of local or long distance calls from the pay telephone. In this case of subscription assignment, a local or long distance call made from the pay telephone is assigned to the service provider to which the owner of the pay telephone subscribes for transmission on the service provider's network. The assignment of the call typically takes place at the central office and is based on a carrier identification code (CIC) received in association with the communication from the pay telephone at the central office.
However, the assignment of a call from a pay telephone to a particular service provider may be overridden so that the call is assigned to a different service provider. A customer using the pay telephone overrides the subscription assignment by indicating a preference for the network of a selected service provider. This override is often referred to as a "dial-around" feature in that the customer is able to get around the subscription assignment of calls to a service provider selected by the owner (i.e. subscriber) of the pay telephone. The customer may indicate a preference of the network of a selected service provider by the entry of information to indicate the customer's preference. Generally, this information is received at the central office and the carrier identification code for that communication is changed or disregarded so that the result is the assignment of the communication to the network of the customer's selected service provider.
It was noted immediately above that the customer indicates a preference for a network of a selected service provider by the entry of information. This information may be entered by voice response from the customer to a prompt provided to the customer upon activation of the pay telephone, i.e., when the customer picks up the handset. This information also may be entered through the use of a credit card or calling card, and in particular, through the use of the magnetic strip containing information on the credit card or calling card. In addition, this information may be entered through the use of the keypad on the pay telephone. Specifically, a customer may indicate a preference for the network of a selected service provider by pressing selected keys, which in turn, provide selected dual tone multifrequency (DTMF) signals to the central office. For example, a customer may choose to override the subscriber assignment of communications at a pay telephone so as to have the customer's communication transmitted by the network of American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). One way to override the subscriber assignment is to sequentially press the keys on the pay telephone's keypad that correspond to the alphanumeric expression: 1800CALLATT. In other words, the customer presses the keys of a keypad in the following order: 1-8-0-0-2 (for "C")-2 (for "A")-5 (for "L")-5 (also for "L")-2 (for "A")-8 (for "T")-8 (also for "T") or 1-8-0-0-2-2-5-5-2-8-8.
As noted above, the service of pay telephones is one area where service providers may increase their business. Thus, it is in the best interests of a service provider to make it as easy and convenient as possible for a customer to override a subscription assignment of a network for the transmission of a communication. In particular, it is in the best interests of a service provider to have its own subscribers as well as non-subscriber's select the service provider to transmit communications. In this way, the service provider transmits more communications, even communications from telephones such as pay telephones where the service provider does not have a subscription assignment, and thereby, the service provider garners more revenue.
The most common situation for the override of a subscription assignment typically takes place at a pay telephone. But an override of a subscription assignment may take place at other telephones as well. For example, a salesperson visiting a manufacturing plant may prefer to have calls transmitted by the salesperson's selected service provider so as to avoid call charges to the manufacturing plant, or for other reasons.
Therefore, there is a need for an easy and convenient way for a customer to indicate a preference of the network of a selected service provider for the transmission of the customer's communication.
There also is a need for an easy, fast and accurate way in which to implement a customer's indicated preference so that a communication associated with the indicated preference information is assigned for transmission to the selected service provider's network.